Intro to Sociology

Sociological Imagination

The ability to see the connection between personal experiences and larger social forces. It encourages individuals to understand their context within society and beyond their immediate circumstances.

Social Class

A division of society based on economic status, education, and occupation. It influences individuals' opportunities, lifestyle, and perspectives.

Conflict Theory

Views society as composed of groups competing for scarce resources.
Social change arises from conflict between the bourgeoisie (owners) and proletariat (workers) over economic interests. (Karl Marx is a key figure in this theory)

Double Consciousness

A sense of “two-ness” experienced by African Americans — seeing oneself through the eyes of a racist society while also maintaining one’s own identity.
It captures the internal conflict between self-perception and societal perception.This concept was introduced by W.E.B. Du Bois to describe the dual awareness of being both African and American, leading to a unique social experience.

Macro Sociology

Focuses on large-scale systems — institutions, social structures, and long-term processes (e.g., capitalism, globalization).

Micro-Sociology

Focuses on everyday social interactions and meaning making between individuals (e.g., face-to-face encounters).

Types of solidarity

Emile Durkheim

Mechanical solidarity: Social cohesion in traditional societies based on shared values and similarity.
Organic solidarity: Cohesion in modern societies based on interdependence and the division of labor.

Material vs. Non-material Culture

• Material culture = physical objects and artifacts created by humans (technology, clothing, architecture, tools).

• Non-material culture = the ideas, beliefs, values, and norms that shape how people behave and think.
  👉 Example: A smartphone (material) reflects cultural values about connection and efficiency (non-material).

Social construction

Social construction refers to the idea that many aspects of our reality, including concepts, beliefs, and norms, are created and maintained through social interactions and agreements among individuals within a society.

Social structure

the underlying regularities or patterns in how people behave
in their relationships with one another
Basic Concepts

Cultural Universals (Durkheim & others)

• Practices or beliefs found in all societies — e.g., family systems, language, art, religious rituals, and moral rules.

• Show that, while culture varies, humans everywhere create systems to meet similar basic needs.

Norms

Shared rules of conduct that specify how people should behave.

• Folkways: everyday customs (like table manners).

• Mores: moral norms (like prohibitions against theft).

• Laws: formally written and enforced norms.
  👉 Norms maintain social order and express a culture’s values.

The Cultural Turn

• A shift in sociology (since the 1980s) emphasizing how culture — rather than just economics or politics — shapes social life.

• Scholars began studying meaning, symbolism, and identity in everyday practices.

Subculture

A group within a larger society that has distinct values, norms, and lifestyles — but still coexists with the dominant culture (e.g., gamers, skaters, religious communities).

Counterculture

Subcultures that actively reject and oppose dominant societal norms (e.g., 1960s hippie movement, anarchists).

Multiculturalism

• The recognition and promotion of cultural diversity within a society.

• Opposes assimilation; encourages respect for cultural differences.

Assimilation

The process through which minority groups adopt the dominant culture’s values and norms, often losing parts of their original culture in the process.

Ethnocentrism

• Judging another culture by the standards of your own — often leading to a sense of superiority.

• Example: assuming Western practices are “normal” and others are “strange.”

Cultural Relativism (Franz Boas)

• Understanding cultures on their own terms, without judging them by one’s own cultural standards.

• Helps sociologists avoid bias and understand meaning within context.

Cultural Appropriation

The adoption of cultural elements (symbols, clothing, language, etc.) by a dominant group in ways that disrespect or exploit the original culture.
👉 Example: fashion designers using sacred Indigenous symbols as decoration.

Semiotics

The study of signs and symbols and how they communicate meaning.

• Signifier: the form the sign takes (e.g., a flag).

• Signified: the concept it represents (e.g., national identity, pride).
  Sociologists use semiotics to understand how culture conveys shared meanings.

Types of Capital (Pierre Bourdieu)

• Economic capital: money and material wealth.

• Social capital: networks, relationships, and social connections that provide opportunities.

• Cultural capital: knowledge, education, tastes, and cultural skills that signal social status.
  👉 These forms of capital help explain how inequality is reproduced beyond just income.

Types of Human Societies

• Hunting and gathering: small, kin-based, egalitarian.

• Pastoral and agrarian: more stable food supply, beginnings of inequality.

• Traditional (premodern): larger, often ruled by kings/empires.

• Industrial: production based on machines; rise of wage labor and urbanization.

• Post-industrial / informational: economies based on knowledge, services, and digital technology.

Nation-states

• Political communities with clearly defined borders and shared culture, governed by a centralized authority (the state).

• Modern societies are organized around nation-states that claim sovereignty over their populations.

Symbolic Interactionism

A micro-level perspective that studies how people create and interpret meaning through everyday interaction.

• Founded by George Herbert Mead and developed by Erving Goffman.

• Core idea: society is built from the meanings people assign to actions, objects, and symbols.
  👉 Example: A handshake means “greeting” because people agree on that symbol’s meaning.

Verbal vs. Nonverbal Communication

• Verbal: speech, written language.

• Nonverbal: gestures, posture, facial expressions, tone, eye contact — often conveys emotion and power dynamics.

Social Roles

• The expectations attached to a given status (like “student,” “teacher,” “parent”).

• These guide behavior but also can cause role conflict when expectations clash (e.g., student vs. employee duties).

Impression Management (Goffman)

• We perform social roles like actors on a stage, trying to control how others see us.

• Example: dressing neatly for class, pretending to be more confident than you feel.

Audience Segregation

• Keeping different “audiences” separate to maintain different versions of ourselves — like how you act differently with friends vs. professors.

• Helps protect your identity in each context.

Front vs. Back Region (Erving Goffman)

• Front region (stage): where the “performance” happens — public settings where we present our best self (class, work, dates).

• Back region (stage): private spaces where we drop the act, relax, or prepare for future performances (home, with close friends).

Civil Inattention

Civil inattention is a sociological term coined by Erving Goffman that refers to the practice of acknowledging the presence of others in public spaces without engaging in direct interaction

Response Cries

• Little exclamations we make during everyday life — like “oops!” or “ugh!” — to show awareness of social norms and save face.

• They help maintain smooth social interaction even when something awkward happens.

Focused vs. Unfocused Interaction

• Focused: when people directly engage with each other (conversation, study group, meeting).

• Unfocused: when people share the same setting but don’t directly interact (in a lecture hall, café, or elevator).

Ethnomethodology (Harold Garfinkel)

• The study of the methods people use to make sense of everyday life.

• Garfinkel did “breaching experiments” — intentionally breaking social norms (like standing too close or answering “How are you?” literally) — to reveal how fragile social order is.

Interactional Vandalism

• When someone intentionally disrupts the expected rules of interaction.

  • Example: a stranger catcalling someone who’s trying to avoid eye contact — they’re breaking civil inattention rules.

Cosmopolitan Canopy (Elijah Anderson)

• Public spaces (like markets or parks) where people from diverse backgrounds come together and interact peacefully.

• They create “microcosms of civility” that show diversity and respect can coexist in urban life.

Social Group

A collection of people who regularly interact and share a sense of identity or belonging.
Examples: family, sports team, class cohort.
Sociologists distinguish these from looser collections of people.

Social Aggregate

A collection of people who happen to be together in the same place but do not significantly interact or identify with one another.
Example: people waiting at a bus stop.

Social Category

People who share a common characteristic but may not interact (e.g., “college students,” “left-handed people,” “Rutgers seniors”).

Primary Groups (Charles Horton Cooley)

Small, close, and emotionally intimate.
Examples: family, close friends.
They are crucial for emotional support and shaping self-identity.

Secondary Groups

Larger, more impersonal, goal-oriented relationships.
Examples: classes, workplaces, student orgs.
Interaction is often temporary and based on achieving a purpose.

In-Groups vs. Out-Groups

In-groups: groups you belong to and feel loyalty toward.
Out-groups: groups you feel opposition or rivalry toward.

Dyad (Georg Simmel)

A group of two — intimate but fragile, since it depends on both people’s participation (e.g., romantic couple).

Triad

A group of three — more stable because alliances can form but also introduces the possibility of conflict or exclusion.

Networks

A set of informal and formal social ties linking people or groups together.
They are the “web” that connects society — friends, coworkers, classmates, online communities.
Manuel Castells studied how digital technology creates “network societies” that organize social life through global connections.

Bureaucracy (Max Weber)

→ A formal organization with a clear hierarchy, rules, and impersonal relationships designed for efficiency.

• Division of labor

• Hierarchy of authority

• Written rules

• Merit-based advancement

• Impersonality
  Problem: can become rigid and alienating.

Oligarchy (Robert Michels)

“The iron law of oligarchy” — all large organizations, even democratic ones, eventually come to be dominated by a small group of elites.

McDonaldization (George Ritzer)

→ The process by which the principles of fast-food restaurants — efficiency, predictability, calculability, and control — come to dominate more and more sectors of society (education, healthcare, etc.).
While it increases efficiency, it also leads to dehumanization and loss of creativity.

Functionalism

• Theoretical perspective seeing society as an integrated system whose parts work together to maintain stability.

Manifest vs. Latent Functions (Robert Merton)

• Manifest functions: intended and recognized outcomes (e.g., school teaches skills).

• Latent functions: unintended or hidden outcomes (e.g., school also socializes children).

Social Fact (Durkheim)

• External, constraining forces that shape individual behavior (laws, norms, institutions).

• Example: the social norm of monogamy affects personal relationships.

Sanctions

• Rewards or punishments used to enforce norms (can be positive or negative, formal or informal).

• Example: applause vs. detention.

Role Conflict vs. Role Strain

• Role conflict: tension between two different roles (e.g., being a student and an employee).

• Role strain: tension within one role (e.g., being a student juggling multiple assignments).

Groupthink (Irving Janis)

When group pressure leads to poor decisions because members suppress dissent to maintain harmony.

Iron Cage (Weber)

the trap of rationalization and bureaucratic control that limits freedom and creativity in modern life.

Anomie (Durkheim)

A state of normlessness or breakdown of social norms during rapid social change — leads to alienation and deviant behavior.

The Self (George Herbert Mead)

I” and “Me”:

• “I” = spontaneous, creative part of the self.

• “Me” = socialized, rule-following self shaped by others’ expectations.
  → Fundamental to understanding symbolic interactionism.

Alexis de Tocqueville (early 1800s)

• French political thinker who studied American democracy.

• Observed that equality shaped U.S. social life but also risked promoting individualism and weakening community ties.

• Saw the U.S. as a society balancing freedom and social order.

Karl Marx (1818–1883) – Conflict Theory

• Believed all history is the story of class conflict between the bourgeoisie (owners) and proletariat (workers).

• Argued that capitalism causes alienation (workers lose connection to their labor and humanity).

• Predicted capitalism would produce its own destruction and give rise to socialism.

• Influenced modern conflict theory and the study of power and inequality.

Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) – Functionalism

• Focused on social facts — external forces (norms, laws, values) that shape behavior.

• Saw society as a system where each part contributes to stability.

• Studied social solidarity:

  • Mechanical solidarity in traditional societies (shared values).

  • Organic solidarity in modern societies (interdependence).

• Famous study: Suicide (1897) → showed that suicide rates vary by social integration and regulation — proving even personal acts have social causes.

Max Weber (1864–1920) – Interpretive Sociology

• Emphasized Verstehen — understanding social action through empathy and meaning.

• Analyzed how rationalization and bureaucracy shape modern life (“the iron cage” of efficiency).

• Studied the Protestant Ethic and its link to capitalism — argued that religious ideas can shape economic behavior.

• Concerned with how values, ideas, and meaning influence social change.

Harriet Martineau (1802–1876) – Early Feminist Sociologist

• One of the first to translate and popularize Comte’s work in English.

• Believed sociology must include women’s experiences and study domestic life, marriage, and childrearing as serious topics.

• Advocated for social reform and moral progress, not just observation.

W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) – Race and Double Consciousness

• First African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard.

• Developed concept of double consciousness — the internal conflict of seeing oneself through a racist society’s eyes.

• Co-founder of the NAACP; connected sociology with activism and racial justice.

• Emphasized the importance of race in shaping modern social inequality.

C. Wright Mills (1916–1962) – The Sociological Imagination

• Argued that personal troubles are often rooted in public issues.

• Urged sociologists to connect individual experience to larger social structures (economy, history, politics).

• Criticized the “power elite” — a small group controlling military, political, and economic life in the U.S.

Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) – Capital and Cultural Reproduction

• Developed the concept of cultural capital (knowledge, tastes, skills) and social capital (networks).

• Showed how schools and families reproduce inequality across generations.

• Introduced habitus — deeply ingrained habits and dispositions shaped by class background.

Ann Swidler (b. 1944) – Culture as a “Tool Kit”

• Argued that culture provides a tool kit of habits, skills, and styles that people draw on to navigate life.

• Culture doesn’t determine behavior; it offers strategies for action.

• Linked to the “cultural turn” in sociology.

Erving Goffman (1922–1982) – Dramaturgical Theory

• Used theater as a metaphor for social life.

• Concepts: impression management, front/back stage, audience segregation.

• Believed everyday interaction is a performance guided by social norms.

Harold Garfinkel (1917–2011) – Ethnomethodology

• Studied how people construct social order through routine interactions.

• Famous for “breaching experiments” that break social rules to show how people maintain norms.

• Inspired research on conversational analysis.

Elijah Anderson (b. 1943) – Urban Sociology

• Studied race, respect, and social interaction in cities.

• The Cosmopolitan Canopy: public spaces where people from different backgrounds coexist peacefully, showing civility across racial lines.

Stanley Milgram (1933–1984) – Obedience to Authority

• Conducted the obedience experiment showing people follow authority figures even when actions conflict with conscience.

• Highlighted how social pressure and authority can override morality.

George Ritzer (b. 1940) – McDonaldization

• Extended Weber’s rationalization theory.

• Argued that society increasingly values efficiency, predictability, calculability, and control — leading to dehumanized institutions.

Manuel Castells (b. 1942) – Network Society

• Describes how digital communication and information technology transform social organization.

• Power and identity are now shaped through global networks rather than local communities.